Rate at which iron ore reserves are increasing is ‘very less’: NMDC

8 February 2017News

Rate at which iron ore reserves are increasing is ‘very less’: NMDC

National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), a Navratna public sector undertaking that is India’s largest iron ore producer, has told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Steel and Coal that while the rate at which the country’s iron ore reserves are increasing is “very less”, the demand for this mineral remains “huge”. “The rate of reserve augmentation is very less as compared to huge demand for the iron ore. Hence, innovative, substantial iron ore exploration shall be strongly pursued. A dedicated fast track iron ore exploration programme to convert iron ore resources (unexplored iron ore areas) to reserve category is needed to meet the demand of iron ore in the coming decades,” the company stated. Therefore, according to NMDC, the way forward is a dedicated fast track iron ore exploration programme, intensive drilling to build reserves, utilising low-grade iron ore, exploring and developing the abundant low-grade iron ore reserves and reduction in loss by recovering iron ore quantity from slimes. Slime is an iron ore particle of a size 0.15 mm or less that is discarded as waste during the mining and processing stages.